


Caim

by windandthestars



Series: Never Let Me Go (Were!Fox AU) [4]
Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Scent Marking, Werefox Will Zimmerman, Werefoxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he shifts again, back to bespeckled half-deaf Will, he'll lose the scent of her and that troubles him.  The fox part of him might not be prone to chronic over thinking and worrying like the rest of him, but it knows when something's wrong, and there's something wrong with that, something very wrong with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/gifts).



> More fox!Will set mid to late season 4.

He's curled up in her bed, long legs tucked under thick warm blankets to ward off the worst of the winter chill. There are logs beside the fireplace, and enough kindling to get a good blaze going but he wants to wait until it's closer to the time she's supposed to be returning. He wants her to see the fire as it builds, not a it crumbles sending sparks and soot up the chimney. He also, selfishly, doesn't want even the faintest whiff of smoke to replace the tenuous hints of her the room still holds. He had sprayed her pillow, the one he’d been sleeping on, with her perfume the night before, but even that didn't smell the same without her here.

He has the newspaper spread out over the bed, the arts and leisure section in front of him, the sports section, already read, folded and tucked beside his thigh, warding off the uneasy feeling of an empty bed. He has coffee, not a smell he associates with Magnus, outside of her extreme dislike of it, but it's warm and comforting in her absence, an excuse for the quiet never ending jitters that mark the empty space around him.

He has at least another hour before he expects to hear from her. She never let him know she was departing until after she cleared airport security, but he has the crossword puzzle and a pen, and while word games had never been his strong suit, he has more than enough time to make a a go of it, or so he had thought.

It's the subtle shift in the house that tips him off, the way door beside the garage clicks shut instead of banging or whispering closed. It's the faint stirring of energy, the slight electrical charge in the air, relief and longing all at once, but most of all it's the indiscernible chatter of voices, the constant game of catch up that accompanies Magnus' return. And as she draws closer it's the sound of her foot steps slow and measured, weighted with fatigue and the smell of her warm and sweet buried under fuel exhaust, fried food, and plastic.

"Will," she smiles despite the tired creases around her eyes.

"Magnus," he sifts the newspaper aside, carefully tucking his pen onto her nightstand behind his glasses before slipping out from under the covers to meet her in the doorway.

"There's coffee in my bed." There's a hint of real humor there despite the contemplative way she's watching him.

"I was drinking it. I'll go poor the rest of it down the drain."

"It can stay." Her smile this time is worn, weary and he frowns reaching out to slip his hand against the curve of her elbow, steadying her as she slips out of her shoes.

"You're exhausted."

"I took an earlier flight."

"I know." He murmurs and for a moment she seems to sway, eyes pressed shut.

"I'm sending Henry to New York in the morning."

"Do I need to-"

She shakes her head. "Stay."

Here now, or tomorrow her meaning isn't clear, but he's not about to leave her, not until he knows she's gotten some rest. "You need to stop working yourself half to death."

"If you have a suggestion." She's angry, but there's no venom behind her words.

"We'll figure this out," he promises, unbuttoning her blazer before gently pushing it from her shoulders. She's not any more convinced than he is, but now isn't the time to worry about that. Addison and his goons at SCIU weren't going anywhere any time soon; they could worry about his master plan later. Right now he needed to get Magnus to bed and resting before she crumbled with the rest of the network. "Shower?"

"Later."

Her answer surprises him and he stands there for a moment, hands suspended over her stomach, processing it. He can't remember the last time Magnus had returned from an extended trip and not showered, certainly not since they had started sleeping together. She had never said anything, but he knew it was in deference to him, removing the smell of other places, other people from her skin. He held her closer, smiled more, when she smelt like home, when she smelt like him.

Smelling other people, foreign places on her left him edgy, not in any way that was readily apparent, but it showed in a myriad of small innumerable ways. As tired and as exasperated as she might be after a trip, having him around cautiously doting on her had always been worth the added aggravation of a shower. At least it had been until now.

"I haven't slept in three days, Will. I'm sorry."

He nods, careful to keep his expression neutral, and helps her from the rest of her clothes, slowly slipping each button free, tugging at each clip, each clasp until wrapped in warm-hued silk she crawls into bed with a sigh.

"Smells like you," she notes sounding almost drunk from her weariness as she buries her face in a pillow.

"Yeah," he sits cautiously on the end of the bed, watching the way she seems to melt into the cream-colored sheets. "Yeah it does." _It's supposed to smell like you._

 

He falls asleep awkwardly sprawled at the end of the bed and wakes with a kink in his neck. The low slant of light through the window surprises him. Magnus is still asleep and he's slept longer than he'd thought. 

He stretches cautiously, careful of his vaguely aching muscles, and sits up to watch her for a moment. Magnus in sleep, always looked peaceful, younger, less worried. Sleep was a respite for her in ways it would never be for him. The fox half of himself was never content just to sleep, there was always a part of him awake, alert, waiting. Magnus when she slept, slept deeply, particularly after a long day. She slept with limbs sprawled and tangled in sheets, her hair wild across the pillows. Today, however, she slept curled against herself, much like how he often slept, as if wedged in by invisible walls, constrained. Her chest still rose and fell in the same way and her fist still clenched at the empty space where he normally curls against her, but there's something troubling in the sight, a faint undercurrent of tension.

Things haven't been going well lately, he knows that, but nothing to warrant this. SCIU had been making things difficult, tying up their finances, grounding their planes, but Magnus and the other Sanctuary heads had the support of the local governments. Rebuilding the transportation and information networks between the various houses was tedious but with frequent flyer miles and endless video chats they were making it work. Whatever had changed, had changed since Magnus had left for New York.

Even then he should have noticed something. They had talked the night before, Will cleaning out the last of the buckets from the 2am feeding and Magnus on a balcony overlooking the city in the predawn dark. Everything had been going well and she seemed content, if not happy, albeit chilled from the icy wind she insisted on standing in. Her cheeks rosy and her nose red she had laughed as snow swirled around her head and he had bemoaned the never-ending winter.

It had been over a year since they had trudged through the snow together in the back woods of Maine, but the intervening time felt like one long stretch of winter, the summer passing with unusually low temperatures and long weeks spent in frigid air-conditioned rooms. The magic she saw in the glittering snow was lost on him, but his heart had swelled all the same with her joy.

Something had changed between then and now, the earlier flight, her exhaustion. She's keeping something from him, and while he knows she has her reasons, it still irritates him. The fox part of him growls jealously as he moves away from her, across the room. He draws a bath, water rushing loud into the tub, and slips away as it fills knowing the sound of running water will wake her before the tub overflows.

 

She finds him later, in his office, and while she makes no mention of his absence it's obvious that she’d noticed. Her hand brushes his, lingers against the side of his face as he works, the stack of paperwork he had been avoiding, dwindling. Finally, as the last of the sun disappears, she stands behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulder, her face tipped into his hair.

"I miss you too." He greets her and her feels her smile, a puff of air against the nape of his neck.

He hears her inhale. "New York was dreadfully cold."

"So I was right." He sets his pen aside and reaches up to wrap his hands around her arms, keeping her close. "What happened this morning?"

"This morning?" He almost misses it, but it's there, the reluctance, the almost rhetorical nature of her query.

"Three days without sleep, the earlier flight?"

"I missed you."

"You missed me last night too. What stopped you from skipping out then?"

"It was cold."

He laughs as she says it teasingly, lightly and then sighs. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"I'm sorry Will. I can't." She sighs in frustration and then releases him, cold air rushing into the space between them. "I did miss you terribly, I needed-" he hears her gesture, silver bracelet clinking softly against her watch. "I'll let you get back to work."

"Magnus," he whispers but she's already gone.

 

He hasn't seen her in two days. Her bed smells like her, there are new clothes in the hamper, damp towels in the bathroom, but she never seems to be here, only to have been. It's another irritation in a growing list. He rolls lazily across her bed, sleepless despite the hour, trying to appease the part of his brain that's insisting he fix the current situation. Short of removing her office door from its hinges and dragging her down here, he's not sure how that would happen.

He needs the smell of her on his skin, to feel her presence in her absence. The room is eerily empty. They inhabit the same house. There's no need for late night phone calls or video chats, but he yearns for them. He needs to know she's thinking of him, that she can't help but think of him. He knows this is somewhat ridiculous. Magnus never sequestered herself in her office to keep the world out, the labs or the catacombs were better for that, she had locked herself away to keep him out, to try to force him from her mind. She needed to concentrate and for whatever reason she can't get him off her mind. He only hopes it's not because she can't bear the thought of lying to him.

He's learned a lot about the truth over the last year: how relative it is, how easy it is to forget. It's a bitter lesson, but he knows it has its value. Whatever this is, they’ll work through it later, but right now he really wants her here with him.

Labeling his current attempt at appeasing his restlessness as a near disaster, he has too much time to think about how miserable he is, he rolls off the bed and on to his feet. He could hang around and wait for Magnus to show up, since he figured she still would, but being here without her is only making him feel worse.

He's not about to stray too far, however, and he settles in a couple of rooms over. Magnus doesn't use this room much in the winter, even with the curtains drawn, the small room is drafty, the oversized windows and large French doors easily rattled by the wind. He finds it suits his mood, the occasional fluttering of thick velvet curtains, and forgives it its lack of charm. Even as it stands empty in the summer it’s light and airy, filled with laughter and long sunny evenings. Tonight with a feeble fire started, it's almost tolerable.

It smells like him, the thick muddy smell of fox and warm body heat. He's been spending more and more time here, close enough to Magnus' room to hear her pass, but far enough away to keep his head clear from the worry and the jealousy. Most of the furniture is covered in a fine dusting of red hair, two of the chairs have legs that have been gnawed on, the varnish and wood chipped. It's homey and cave like, soothing reminders of safety despite the way the fox tugs more strongly in his mind.

"Not interested," Will mumbles to himself, but he knows it's useless. It's late and he's tired, cold now that he's sitting on the bare wood floor. He's alone, the communal pull of his family, Helen, missing, his hold on his more taxing reality growing tenuous.

He feels his stomach drop, and then the floor rushes up to meet him. In an instant he's burrowed into his clothes, long snout peaking out from under the edge of a sleeve. His senses explode. It's silent here, save for the crackling of the fire and his heart beating in his ears, but his nose, the smells are alive, overflowing. The Big Guy had come by at some point that afternoon, he hadn't cleaned anything but he had run his hand over one of the seat cushions. One of the doors no longer squeaked in protest every time the wind rattles it.

Will focuses and the smells fade away, sounds from other parts of the house emerging to spread out before him. Kate he thinks is in the kitchen, several floors directly below him, although she may be standing in the hall beside the door. He's not interested in hazarding a guess as to which. Henry must still be in his lab because Will can't pinpoint him from within the rest of the household noise, but Magnus-

It's as much a figment of his imagination as it is anything he's actually hearing but it's there, the sound of her footsteps across the width of her office, back and forth. He mirrors her path, pacing, and then moves into the hall. He slinks along its length and then stops, turning for a return trip.

The door to her room is cracked open. He hadn't bothered to shut it all the way, and the warm softly floral scented air tugs at him until he peers inside. It's not entirely dark with the lights off, but it's dark enough that his sense of smell kicks into overdrive and his whiskers tickle as they brush table legs and candelabras.

The bed smells more like her now and he makes a game of jumping around the bed, crushing her pillows and leaving small fox footprints dented in the silky mattress topper. He loops around the bed in a figure eight and yips, delighting in the sound, despite the lack of echoing laughter.

Magnus had been here. He follows his noise, searching out anything that reminds him even faintly of her. The bathroom. The tile floor feels unpleasantly clammy underfoot, but the rug beside the tub is soft and warm. There's no trace of Magnus in the rug, but he makes a note to borrow it for his newly improvised den.

He sets his feet, blacker in the near darkness, against the edge of the tub and peers inside. The fox part of him finds water distasteful, so he's leery of going too near the shower where the floor might still be damp from early that afternoon, but he's also curious. He hadn't thought to explore in here before.

There's nothing of note- aside from the fact that her shampoo smells twenty times more heavenly with his fox nose than without— until he loops back around to the door and catches the shimmer of dark green silk against the back of the door. It takes some work, pulling cautiously and then with more determination as he plays an odd game of tug of war with the hook on the back on the door. 

The fabric falls suddenly, pooling on the floor around him, covering his head in rippling waves. Scooting out from under it, he paws at it, burying his nose in it at intervals searching for the one smell he knows will be there _Magnus_.

He feels the back of his throat begin to vibrate and then he hears it: quiet, contented purring. It's a ridiculous feeling, vaguely tickly but not unpleasant. It's the feeling Magnus elicits when he draws her nails lightly down the back of his neck as they kiss. It's waking up in her arms with sunlight pouring through the window. It's the smell of coffee and blueberry pancakes.

His nails click against the floor as he does a happy fox dance, the only thing more ridiculous than purring. He looks like an idiot, he knows that, but he doesn't care. If Magnus were here she would be laughing, calling him a kit, and he would nip at her ankles with a quick yip in agreement.

When he shifts again, back to bespeckled half-deaf Will, he'll lose the scent of her and that troubles him. The fox part of him might not be prone to chronic over thinking and worrying like the rest of him, but it knows when something's wrong, and there's something wrong with that, something very wrong with that.

There's only one solution to this, one the more rational part of his brain doesn't catch on to until he's lifted his leg and sprayed the sleeve of the gown. Even knowing Magnus is going to kill him for this, and that he'll kick himself later for destroying the silk, it's hard for him to stop. He's sick of this game, of her hiding away, denying him. He's here and he's not going anywhere.

The fox part of him grins at the mixture of smells, Magnus and Will, as he steps back to survey his work, the exposed portion of the fabric dotted with urine.

He considers shifting back, taking the whole thing and stuffing it into the laundry or better yet the trash. He's feeling more relaxed though, his amped up fox brain slowly settling down into its resting state. It feels nice and so he stays, leaving the gown, the bathroom, and Magnus' room behind to return to his space, the small cozy room with the delightfully squishy furniture.

With the fox releasing some of its control, some of the calm slipping away, it’s not long before he starts to stress. There’s nothing concrete there, the psychobabble’s still held at bay, but he knows he doesn’t like this feeling, overwhelming and dark.

 _Out_ the fox part of him is grumbling and he finds himself starching anxiously at one of the large doors behind the curtains, thick velvet resting on the slope of his back. The doors open in, but even now they’re not bolted shut, he should be able to get them open if he catches the right spot on the side of the door with a nail.

It’s freezing out there, snow swirling, but the fox part of him doesn’t care. It’s well adapted to the cold and it wants out. Out of the house, outside, out of his own head.

The door whines and the latch clicks, the door blown open back against the drapery and he squeezes himself out onto the balcony. Everything is white. There’s some grey in the black but everything else is white, dusted with snow. Underfoot it’s heavy and sticky, easily compacted as he moves from one edge of the balcony to the other.

His mind is quieter now, cleared out by the wind and he settles low to the ground, standing with his nose pressed between to of the railing slats. He can smell the water in the inlet and hear the waves omnipresent under the wind. His eyes are good but out here all he sees is emptiness. It’s an odd irony given that he feels less alone out here. The city sleeps behind a curtain of white, glowing and warm.

Snow tickles his ears as it whispers by and he backs up enough to shake his head, the accumulated snow a fuzzy halo around him. Somewhere in one of the nearby windows a pigeon seeks shelter from the weather, soft coos and rustling feathers alerting him to its presence. It’s a single-minded focus with which he observes the bird, discerning its movement and motives from smell and sound alone. It’s a hunter stalking its pray, waiting for the right moment to strike. While this predatory instinct used to disturb him, he’s found these attributes, the patience, to be advantageous to his everyday life. He had learned to rein them in, hone them. Even if the bird hadn’t been safe behind thick metal slats it was in no danger from Will; his motive may be primal, but his intent was born of curiosity. If anything, he wished there was some way to coax it down into the rafters of the garage. It would be safer there, more sheltered, but its stuck where it is for now, battered by the wind and the snow.

There’s noise from inside the house. He’s been standing out here for a while although he’s not sure quite how long. Once he had acclimated to the cold, the passage of time had become irrelevant to him. There’s something familiar in the footstep in the hall and for a moment he thinks _Magnus_ before labeling it as wishful thinking and turning back toward the front of the estate.

It’s beautiful out here in the snow, something he had failed to appreciate earlier that week when Magnus had so joyously pointed it out. It’s a conflicted feeling, the fox versus Will, one he’s rather accustomed to, but that doesn’t make him feel any better about it. He’s been missing out on the little things lately, the simple joys and that’s disconcerting, with things the way they were around the Sanctuary, he needed whatever he could get.

“Will?” Magnus startles him out of his brooding and he turns, tail swishing, to slip through the open door.

He calls to her quietly, a high whiny owlish sound, and shivers under the dusting of snow that’s settled over his fur. He’s feeling less guilty about the robe and her inevitable disapproval, but his ears still press back against his skull and he sinks closer to the ground as her shadow brushes by the inner door.

“Will?” Her eyes narrow, searching him out in the dark, and then grow concerned. “Are you all right?”

He makes his way over to her and presses his nose, icy cold, into the crease in her pant leg. She crouches, low, fingers brushing along his back. He hums something and then sighs, surprised when his fingers reach to brush her hair off her shoulder and his skin ripples with goosebumps.

“Damn fox,” he groans, groping around for something with which to cover himself. “I’m sorry about that, Magnus.”

“Sorry about what?” Magnus replies and then holds up the green silk in her fist as if to say _oh this_. “You’re feeling all right then?”

She looks confused, Will realizes as he slips on his glasses and turns back to face her. It’s harder to see her now that he’s human, but at least his vision’s less fuzzy now that he’s found his glasses. “I’m fine I-“ he fumbles for the words, aggravated at how difficult it is to confine his instincts to a finite set of words. “You’re ignoring me.”

She opens her mouth to refute him and then sighs. “It wasn’t entirely intentional. I never meant to-”

“Magnus,” he moves closer to her, eating away at the space between them.

“No excuses,” she agrees as he shakes his head. “I needed the space. I needed to sort through everything that’s been going on without any distractions.” She drops her hands back to her side. “I have some big decisions to make, and I know you want to be a part of that process. I want you to too, but I need to figure some things out first.”

“You’ll know when I know.” 

“When the time is right.” She corrects and his shifts on his feet, weight shifted from one foot to the other and back again, a hold over from the fox.

“You could have told me.” He’s not angry, but he sounds weary, cautiously reserved even to his own ears.

She winces.

“I’m not angry.” He knows she knows, but they both feel better with it out in the open, with something out in the open. “I missed you.”

“I missed you to,” she smiles almost sadly and then recovering, laughs. “Not quite as horribly as you missed me I imagine.”

“Am I ever going to live that down?”

“Urinating on my favorite robe, eventually perhaps.”

He laughs with her, beckoning her closer. He’s not sure why he draws her out onto the balcony. Wrapped in his arms she’s warmer than he is, but both of them will be frozen through in a matter of minutes. It’s peaceful out here like it had been before and she’s smiling, lightly, absentmindedly, her head pressed back against his shoulder, her arms wrapped around her stomach underneath where his rest.

He breathes in the cold air and breathes out warm, watching the faint shimmer of the city lights through the snow. He nestles his rapidly freezing nose down into her hair and she groans in protest, eyes fluttering open for a moment. 

“I can feel that, bloody freezing.” She grouses and he chuckles holding her close. They’ll have to go inside in a moment, but for now he wants to watch the way the snow makes her smile, watch the way it falls to settle on the roofs and balcony cocooning his home, their home.


End file.
